Keough: I’d say I’m very focused. From the time I was six years old racing BMX, my whole bike-riding career, this is what I wanted to do as a job. I had absolutely no ambitions of going to college. School happened only because I had to be there. So far it’s paid off, though it does get frustrating at times because you put that much into it and you always want to see the results and they’re not always there. Being focused is what’s pushed me through and hasn’t let anything get in my way.

Bicycling: It seems there’s increased emphasis on the sprint leadouts these days. What effect has that had on racing?

Keough: Pro teams are putting more emphasis on sprint trains. Where you used to have, say, five sprinters going for the win, you now have five sprinters’ teams, with maybe five riders per team, at any given race. So you’ve gone from five riders to 25 riders who are trying to take up the same amount of road. That in itself is going to be more dangerous and make for faster racing. And it’s going to make it harder for a rider who doesn’t have a leadout to push into that area of the sprint.

That said, I’m a bit more of a scrappy rider, and I think I can win without a leadout. The key is to have a plan going into the race. If the plan is to have a leadout, you need to be a uniform, tight-knit train at the end. If the plan is to freelance, the plan’s much more open to the sprinter himself, to take matters into his own hands and position himself. And if you have the mindset that you have to freelance, you can win. And that’s what Cavendish showed at the Tour de France this year. He knew he didn’t really have a leadout, so he didn’t rely on one.

No matter what, sprinting is more art than science, because it’s so dynamic. You can go back 20 years, even before Cipollini, and the leadout trains were starting and they were successful. Cipollini had the Saeco train, Petacchi had his Fassa Bortolo train. These guys were the successful sprinters, and there were a lot of runners-up behind them freelancing. Now what you’re seeing is, instead of one team doing the leadout, you’re seeing five or six teams doing it. That just makes the competition that much closer.

Bicycling: OK, you’re an aggressive rider. But you rely on some pretty sharp bike-handling skills to keep you out of trouble. Where do they come from?

Keough: One thing that’s really important as far as bike racing goes is bike-handling skills. I can’t emphasize how much they come in handy. The way to build those is not only by doing criteriums and sprints and races, but also by cross-training. I still ride BMX probably once a week when I’m home; I still ride the mountain bike constantly. I still get on the cyclocross bike with my brothers and ride and train on that. Putting all those together and being a well-rounded bike-handler is very important, not only for safety reasons but also to try to win.

Bicycling: So is it time to rest and recover in the off season?

Keough: I’m really bad at resting. I get stir-crazy. It’s actually my biggest weakness, resting properly to get the full benefits of hard training and racing. I need to go full gas all the time.